EcoCAR 2: Plugging in to the Future, is a three-year collegiate engineering competition and the only program of its kind. The competition's mission is a vital one: offer an unparalleled hands-on, real-world experience to educate the next generation of automotive engineers. The competition challenges 15 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of a Chevrolet Malibu without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability.

Established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), EcoCAR 2 builds upon a successful 23-year history of DOE Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTC) that exemplify the power of public/private partnerships in providing invaluable experience and training to promising, young minds entering the North American job market. EcoCAR 2 follows the widely acclaimed competition series EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge.

Shaped by the greatest design changes in the history of the automotive industry, EcoCAR 2 requires students to explore a variety of powertrain architectures focusing on electric drive vehicle technology. EcoCAR 2 teams will utilize a Chevrolet Malibu, donated by General Motors as the integration platform for their advanced vehicle design.

During the three-year program EcoCAR 2 teams will follow a real-world Vehicle Development Process (VDP) modeled after GM's VDP. The VDP serves as a roadmap for the engineering process of designing, building and refining their advanced technology vehicles. Following a VDP will give the teams an opportunity to improve their vehicles efficiency while retaining consumer acceptability, performance and safety.

Technical Goals:
• Reduce petroleum energy consumption on the basis of a total fuel cycle analysis;
• Reduce fuel consumption;
• Reduce well to wheel greenhouse gas emissions;
• Reduce criteria tailpipe emissions;
• Maintain consumer acceptability in the area of performance, utility, and safety.